


Superdisc!: Assorted Reports

by bookhobbit



Series: Superdisc! [2]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M, Gen, superdisc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bits and pieces from the Superdisc! universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With grateful thanks to seiya234 (whose url i shifted by a digit originally omg sorrY SEIYA I'VE A TERRIBLE HEAD FOR NUMBERS) on tumblr, who kindly beta'd this and the proceeding two stories for me. This is pretty short, but I've got two more written, so it shouldn't be quite so long till the next piece.

Another day, another ride in a car full of huge men in black suits who had showed up at the door and announced 'Lord Vetinari will see you now' without warning. Again.

Vimes was almost used to it by now, except it hadn't been his door this time. It'd been the door of Lady Sybil Ramkin. She was the richest woman in the city, and you'd think that would guarantee her immunity from having her guests kidnapped, but Vimes wouldn't have been upset if it were just a matter of being dragged away from one posh house to be deposited in another. 

No, the point about Lady Ramkin was that they'd been having quite a good dinner, and he'd found himself, in a horrified way, fascinated by her company.

It had been ages since that'd happened, and it was especially terrible because she was so posh. Posh women were not Vimes' territory. But she'd asked him to dinner because, as she'd put it, 'You bravely rescued me from that dastardly Dragon'. Which was true, sort of, except he hadn't been brave and he'd never use the word dastardly himself and besides, after he'd rescued her she'd rescued him right back.

She had, however, been quite insistent – on both the question of his heroism and the notion of dinner. And when he'd got there, she'd started flirting with him. Casually, as if she was aware that coming on too strong would frighten him off, but flirting all right. A posh and powerful woman flirting with him. He had no idea how to wrap his mind around this concept. His feelings about her were quite complicated anyway. She was an extremely nice and warmhearted person, but she was rich and he had a natural grudge against the rich. On the other hand, she didn't swan around at parties and talk down to servants. She raised animals and donated money for free hospitals.

But regardless, it had been a really excellent dinner, and he was therefore put out by being summoned away.

Consequently, he refused to be unnerved by Vetinari's uncomfortable waiting-room chairs or the clock that ticked just a little bit off-beat. He stood and smoked a cigar instead. A clerk came to thank him for not smoking once. Vimes stared at him until he apologized and retreated.

Shortly after that he was let into Vetinari's office.

"Good afternoon, Commander Vimes," said Vetinari. "I do hope I haven't interrupted anything important."

Vimes did not say, "I was having the best supper I've had in years, you bastard." Instead, he said, "Sir."

"I wished to talk to you about recruiting."

"Recruiting, sir?"

"For the Floating Guard. I understand you have hired a few more people. "  
He'd thought something like this might happen. "Yes, sir," he said, straightening his shoulders. He'd defend his decision, if it came to that. They needed the help.

"Good," said Vetinari, "I would like you to hire more."

"What?" Vimes was ready to weather a storm from one direction, but knocked quite away by the surprise from another. He took a puff of his cigar to cover his confusion.

"I believe there are some others in the city with the special abilities required to assist you in your work. I would hate to think that they became so desperate as to turn to crime."

"Well, we could do with a bit more staff," Vimes admitted. "People are calling us for help nowadays instead of the police." 

"Indeed. Which puts you in significant danger. Do be careful." Vetinari looked down at the papers on his desk. "Particularly given your recent association with Lady Sybil. She is a high-profile woman, and one who could easily become a target for anyone with a grudge."

"Yes, sir." Vimes' poker face was back, but he wasn't too surprised Vetinari knew anyway. After all, the man had sent his goons to her door, not to Vimes'. "All right," he said, "But am I supposed to interview them? How? This is meant to be a bit of a secret, I can't just knock on doors and say, 'Hello, would you like to be part of an illegal vigilante movement disguised as gainful employment?'" 

"I have no doubt Captain Carrot's connections will be beneficial to you in this matter, as in all others. As much as I would like to have final power over who is recruited to the team, I suspect you wouldn't pay attention to it anyway. I shall trust your judgment. Now, I'm sure you would like to return to your dinner. Do not let me detain you."

And just like that, Vimes walked out, accompanied by a distinct feeling of having been clotheslined. 

But there was still the dinner to return to. Sybil had said she'd keep it warm. And after having been smacked upside the head by Vetinari's surprise orders, he felt nothing else could be quite so bad. Not even being unexpectedly flirted with.

Maybe, he thought, he would gather up enough wits to flirt back.


	2. Chapter 2

Agnes sat in the office, twisting the fabric of her dress and feeling ridiculous in the makeshift mask she'd improvised for the sake of concealment. She didn’t want to be here, but it seemed the safest option. She had to exercise Perdita somehow and better to release her for the sake of good than have her wrecking Agnes' life because she was bored.

But she hadn't known there'd be an interview. She'd just marched up to Carrot, whom everyone knew was in on it at a pretty high level, and said: "I want to be a superhero."

It sounded silly when you said it like that. But not as silly as Carrot's reaction of overblown surprise.

"I'm sure you must be mistaken. I can't help you with that," he'd said, winking at her and patting her hand, slipping a piece of paper into it with the worst sleight-of-hand she'd seen since the clown at her little cousin's birthday party. She'd apologized, and smiled awkwardly at him to let him know she'd got the message.

The paper said 'Come to the abandoned police station on Treacle Mine Road at 9pm tonight.'  


She wasn't sure what she had expected. A dark figure cloaked in shadow telling her what she needed to know. A cadre of vigilantes, gathered around a table discussing weighty matters, turning to face her as she made her dramatic entrance. Perdita's dreams. 

What she got was a dimly-lit but bustling station full of...well, you had to call them people, because there wasn't any other label that could reasonably fit. The first one she bumped into...

"Are you dead?" Agnes peered at the stitches on his fingers. One was loose. She hoped it didn't fall off.

The man frowned. "I prefer differently alive, thank you." 

"Sorry. Um, I'm new."

The frown lessened slightly. "I suppose you weren't to know," the man said. "Come for an interview?"

"I don't know, they just gave me a piece of paper – "

"Ah, then yes. I'll take you up. I'm Reg Shoe, incidentally."

"Aren't you supposed to have secret identities?"

"Some do, some do. But I prefer to take the risk. I don't like to hide my face behind a mask." 

"And I suppose the grey skin makes it difficult."

He was leading her upstairs, his back to her, so she couldn't see his face; the posture change, however, was immediately obvious. "Sorry," she said. Apparently she'd need to take zombie sensitivity courses, if she wanted to get ahead in this business.

The silence after that was awkward, but the stairs were short and soon she'd been deposited at a dilapidated door that creaked slightly when she knocked.

"Come on in, then," a voice called.

Opening it, she found...

Well, it was the Watchman. She knew the look of him; tabloid photographers had been quite interested in the superheroes lately. He had a mask over half his face, a grubby trenchcoat, and hair that was greying at the temples, just like in the pictures, but somehow, sitting behind a desk in a sunlit office, he looked a lot less impressive.

She shook herself internally. That was another Perdita thought, and she didn't want to indulge it and thereby underestimate someone who was likely among the most dangerous people she'd ever met.

"Go ahead and sit down," said the man behind the desk. And that was how she'd ended up here, continuing to twist her dress. He hadn't spoken another word, just scrutinized her.

"I won't ask your name for obvious reasons," Watchman said, finally. "But I do have to know what you can do."

Anges nodded, stood up, closed her eyes. And released Perdita.

It felt like purposefully sinking into deep water, and she hated it. But better to let her out voluntarily; being forced inside was more like having your head held under.

Distantly, she was aware of the rush of imploding air as her body changed and reshaped itself until it was not her body anymore. And she heard Perdita's voice, smooth as silk and sharp as a knife, saying "Hah, yes, finally."

After that she mostly shut her mind and let it happen. She hated being conscious while Perdita was doing all her handsprings and cartwheels. It made her dizzy. 

Finally she heard Watchman say "Very impressive. You can stop now." Hastily she grabbed for control and, after a few long moments, got it. She shifted back to her own body, feeling the suddenly return of sensation, awareness of her movements.

"Can you apply all that to combat?" she heard as she sat back down, still a little dazed.

"Well, once someone tried to mug me."

"And?"

"His left leg still pains him on wet days, I hear."

"Ah, well." Watchman stood up. "You'll have a month's trial run. Come back here – can you do tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, um."

"Good, we'll put you on day patrol. Understand, this is probationary. You do anything that suggests you're not vigilante material, such as act like you're planning on reporting us to Snapcase, and you'll be out on your ear. All right?"

"Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you." Agnes adjusted her homemade mask and stumbled out the door, right into the zombie, who looked reproachfully at her.

"Sorry," she said, too wrapped up in her thoughts to try and correct her earlier faux pas. So she went, straight past all the bustling and people shouting things like "Conman on the job again, we need a pursuit team, get together the fastest ones and send 'em out to Gleam Street."

It seemed surreal. She was a superhero now. What was she going to do about costumes? Nothing that looked good on her would satisfy Perdita, and anything that would satisfy Perdita would make her too self-conscious to function. It was a bugger, having the soul of a vain and ill-tempered demonic being attached to yours. 

It wasn't as if it'd been her fault, even. She hardly remembered when it'd happened, just that growing up, there had always been the other little girl. But the possessions hadn't started till quite recently. That worried Agnes. If Perdita's power was increasing...

But maybe her life just hadn't been exciting enough before this. She sighed, and set off home, thinking that it was about to get a lot more so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to do some more with Agnes and figure out how she got Perdita stuck in her soul but this is all I got right now. I figured demonic being seemed weird enough to be superhero-ish. There's another bit written with Moist and Adora and so I'll post that in a bit (hopefully not more than a week unless I forget).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...well, I forgot.  
>  And I haven't written anymore, either. I really need to stop making promises about this series. I seem to write it only very sporadically. I guess, hopefully eventually I'll have another chapter for you guys? Sorry to be so neglectful.

He called himself Conman, although there weren't too many people who knew that. To most he was just Time Thief's interchangeable and, frequently, incompetent sidekicks. 'Never see him with the same one twice,' people would say to themselves. You'd think they'd suspect something.  
They never seemed to, though. It was always so simple.

When Vetinari collared him - well, properly speaking, it hadn't been Vetinari at all, it'd been that new Reaper Man. Except not Reaper Man anymore, being as she was a woman; just The Reaper now. Moist'd worked out all Reaper Man's tricks, so he was prepared when he saw the black hood, but well, they said everyone made a fatal mistake and this was his.

However...not really fatal. Unless you counted going straight as a sort of death, which Moist did. It was so boring. He'd had a good thing going with Time Thief. Different face every job, always acting a part, taking money but never really hurting people. Interesting without being truly harmful, in his opinion. After all, he was just redistributing money.

The Floating Guard, however, did not appear to see it that way.

He and Time Thief had been alright with Snapcase’s gang. Lobsang moved far too fast for them, and as for Moist, well, escape never presented a challenge to a man who walk around a corner and be someone else. He always made sure to have some distinct mannerism that people would notice, some feature that you couldn't miss. 

But the Floating Guard had others with talents. Maybe not quite like his and Lobsang's, but enough to match them. He'd heard they'd got a speedster now, which was probably what had done it for Lobsang. It was all very well bending time but you had to have enough warning to know what to bend away from.

So Moist sat and wondered why he wasn't being hanged.

And learned about angels.

Stepping out into the street with his own face made him more than a little paranoid. He hadn't done it since he was so small he couldn't control his transformations. It feels naked and vulnerable, here in the crowds and the sunlight.

But, clearly, his only choice. He'd really prefer to go back to being a small-time crook, but the point about life was that it was hard to give up. And he wasn't interested in pursuing his craft to the end of his life. So he spent his first day half furious and half bored, being given a tour of the facilities, being introduced to Watchman who wasn't as impressive as you thought he'd be but who nevertheless was definitely a man to keep an eye out for. Being shepherded around.

The second day he spent in the company of Spike.

She was about his age, and appeared to have pyrokinesis, but she only ever used it to light cigarettes while they patrolled. With, incidentally, six big clay men with fire behind their eyes. They helped her fight. 

It was all a bit mysterious to Moist. Why Spike, if what you were good at was fire? Why big clay men when you had powers of your own? 

He asked her, and she told him, "They're called golems. Do not ask that again if you don't want a stiletto through your foot."

She meant a stiletto heel. That was another thing about Spike; she was the only woman he'd ever known to patrol the city wearing six-inch heels. Effective, though. They were like daggers on her feet. The third day he saw her draw blood with them.

Moist told himself that he'd escape before the week was out. He kept on telling himself this, because it made it okay to stay and watch Spike casually jab her cigarette into the arm of a man who had reached out to grab her. It meant it was okay to be utterly fascinated by her, to try to solve her like the puzzle she is, because he'd be gone soon, right?

He refused to admit to himself that he was having fun.

True, he didn't like the fighting, but as it turned out there were just as many opportunities to con people when you were on the good side. More, maybe, because they trusted you easier. Besides, he'd never had much of a conscience, but it was nice knowing that most of his enemies were behind bars or would be shortly, rather than that most of them were out walking around with the law on their side.

The fifteenth day he asked Spike out to dinner; she said she was busy. The eighteenth day she said yes.

And after that – 

After that, well, he stopped counting.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Faces of choice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3986593) by [Meruryan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meruryan/pseuds/Meruryan)




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